Regular Council Meeting, 2/21/18

City Council met for its second regular meeting of February on 2/21/2018. There were a number of repeat items on the agenda with a heavy emphasis on zoning requests forwarded from Planning Committee that had first readings on 2/7 that were up for action. Items and discussions of note included:

Business Income Collection Tax Changes due to State Law Modifications (Emergency Clause)

As always full agendas and minutes are available on the Springdale site. This post will just touch on some highlights.

Zoning Request (action) for:

11345 Century Circle West (Vineyard Ministries)

The Vineyard would like to expand the services offered at their location, including clinic services. This assortment of offerings is not permitted under their current zoning and would require a planned used agreement (PUD) to make the changes. Of note on the clinic the Vineyard shared that that UC medical were a part of their discussions with a hope of partnering to provide free clinic services in Springdale. I think this is a valuable offering and Springdale is lucky to have this group located here. This passed 7-0.

242 W. Sharon Rd (The Housing Network of Hamilton County)

One of the services of the Housing Network is to provide safe, affordable, and accessible housing to residents with developmental disabilities. The agency located property in Springdale citing its safety and affordability with good access to public transit. In order to accommodate a higher density (4 unit) build on a parcel that was original designated for a small medical office (or similar) a change to the plan is required. I was impressed with Council Person Shroyer’s questions about sidewalk and public transit access! You can see in the attached drawing what is envisioned – this passed 6-1.

PUD at Cassinelli Square (Small Hospital)

A developer presented at the past Planning Committee meeting proposing a small level 4 hospital facility. This is inside a planned development area so would require a change to accommodate. There was a a good deal of discussion on this item around impact this might have on local EMS services as well as impact on residents (where the facility would have ER signs – and would be an Emergency Room but would not have full inpatient services that a larger hospital would have.) This facility would have more services for emergency care than our local urgent care has with less wait times than a full ER (which are also not far). I feel this is an opportunity as this build gets closer for our health department to continue to educate our residents on the best outlets for different types of emergencies while improve choice and care. This passed 5-2.

325 Pictoria Dr (Bahama Breeze)

A hotel / development group approached Planning Committee with the intent to build a small extended stay hotel at the site of the former Bahama Breeze restaurant. Again, this would require a zoning change to accommodate. This passed with very little discussion 7-0.

As discussed at the previous meeting Springdale currently has agreements with several other communities to house prisoners for short periods of time. Springdale has a 4 cell facility and typically has room available. This allows us to work with these other communities (often direct neighbors) to help maintain public safety. As I said several times during campaigning last year public safety should not just be about what happens directly inside out city, it must take into account what is going on across the yard or over the fence (literally in some cases) as well. The proposed contract has good controls to manage the risk of outside prisoner confinement (liability and similar). At the past meeting the emergency clause was removed and this was the second reading which then was passed 7-0.

Updates Business Income Tax Collection Changes (Emergency clause)

As part of Ohio’s 2018 budget (House Bill 49) the State has added provisions that allows business to pay their net income taxes through the Ohio Gateway for all municipalities they operate in and then the State distributes to each local government quarterly (with accrued interest). There are already regional groups that collect for some governments such as RITA. There several good summaries of the changes – I found this one to be very helpful. There are strong opinions on if this change infringes on Home Rule (the rights of the cities outlined in the Ohio Constitution) which are being worked out through the legal system but in the meanwhile Springdale is required to update its tax collection laws to accommodate (under protest) these changes. This law allows central collection, it does not require it, and it only applies to business net income tax collection. Springdale is a party to that legal challenge (though the required changes passed 7-0).

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